


Break It

by orphan_account



Series: oracles are NOT to be trusted [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Briefly unilock, F/M, Jim expresses emotions through art thievery, Not a soulmate AU, Teenlock, and molly is adorbs, featuring chainsmoking!mycroft the oracle, jim is not smooth at all, magic school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 04:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jim thinks he should probably break it to Molly at some point that they're not actually soulmates (that, hell, soulmates aren't even a real thing, Mols), but he can't quite get around to it.(companion piece to Take You Out)





	1. Chapter 1

Jim Moriarty is about 10 years old when his mom goes and gets remarried and suddenly he has a new house, a new step-father, and a new step-brother named James.

 

Jim mentally _screams_ at the injustice of not just having to move _across the country_ but moreso because he takes one look at his new and lanky step-family members and just _knows_ he’s going to be in for a lifetime of _“Is Jim the short version of James? Ha!”_ jokes because _genetics._  Thanks, _mother_ , for not having the _foresight_ to not start dating someone who _already had a kid with the same name._

 

Out loud, he screams anyway, and stomps his way from the moving truck to the house. Before he can touch the front door knob, however, his mother smacks him on the head.

 

“Jim!” she reprimands, because Helene Moriarty is something of a spitfire who doesn’t take sass from anyone and knows she raised her son better than this.

 

“Be nice!” she says, and shoves a bar of soap in his mouth. Jim is burning with _indignance_ now, because he didn’t even swear this time! It was a wordless outburst! But Helene isn’t having any of it, and points Jim somewhere upstairs in the vicinity of what was probably his room.

 

Jim, sulking, with a mouth still full of soap, turns to James, who stares wide-eyed and a bit nervous back at him. He shows him his room anyway, and hesitantly gives a guided tour on the way. It’s hard to talk to someone, new family member or not, when there’s a bar of soap in their mouth.

 

The two brothers have bedrooms beside each other on the second floor of a nice house with a nice yard, and the rooms are connected by a bathroom with two sinks.

 

On James’s side, there is a comb, a cup, a toothbrush, a roll of toothpaste, little floss picks, and a soap dish.

 

On Jim’s side, there is a comb, a cup, a toothbrush, a roll of toothpaste, a roll of floss, and seven bars of soap. Each one has teeth marks.

 

James stares a bit, brush halting, as Jim sets the bars of soap onto the counter from his bag one by one. Jim catches him staring.

 

“ _What?”_

 

James makes a _yeesh, nothing_ face and resumes his teeth-brushing with renewed fervor.

 

-

 

The one good thing about all this new stuff was that his mother married a man who had considerable standing in the community, and could easily get Jim into the nearby magical academy even though it was a competitive school and he would be enrolling late.

 

He ends up qualifying to skip a grade, and then once all the bags are packed and the paperwork is done and the goodbyes are said, Jim is off to meet his destiny.

 

This school has been Jim’s _dream_ , because every sorcerer in training here gets a Quest, an opportunity to set into motion one of history’s great stories.

 

He practically skips down the tunnel and into the cave, and then he sees a tall young man sitting at a table dead center, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette, not noticing Jim at all.

 

Jim blinks.

 

Then clears his throat.

 

The man very reluctantly lifts his gaze from his paper, then takes one look at Jim and sighs, long and laborious.

 

“Oh, you’re going to be trouble, aren’t you.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You will one day unearth a wonderful treasure.”

 

Jim wonders if that’s Molly, the treasure. He wonder if, because her quest has somehow been misconstrued to include him, maybe his works that way around too. Or not. Maybe he’s meant to become an archaeologist.

 

She gives him a dazzling grin and he clutches the flowers a little tighter and thinks,  _ well, why the hell not? _

 

-

 

Molly has planned this date out for  _ ages _ . When she was 10, she had daydreams of riding unicorns and maybe taking a ship to Neverland but that was then, back when she was young and impressionable and Sherlock really had such a realistic imagination when the three of them were playing.

 

Anyway, as the years went on, she added to and took away from this perfect first date scenario until she had what she considered the perfect equation.

 

“So, where exactly are you taking me, Molly Hooper?” Jim asks her as they walk down the dirt road, down the mountain path and back to school.

 

“To the circus,” she answers proudly.

 

He looks surprised, but not badly, and she knows this was meant to be. The circus had just come into town two days prior, and would only be in town for a week. It was like this every year, and how could they not be soulmates, how could they not be meant for each other, if the date she planned three years ago, an event so time sensitive, just happened to work out perfectly?

 

She wears a red dress that is amazing because it has short sleeves and it has pockets, and the skirt flares out beautifully, moving in time with the spring in her step. 

 

Jim has clearly brushed his hair for this occasion, and Molly smiles when she sees him. Jim today is not like Jim most days, where he looks a little lost not because he’s been daydreaming (like Molly) but because he’s trying to go unseen and be ignored. 

 

This is good, Molly thinks, because Molly plans to learn all about him now. 

 

They enter a massive tent that is definitely even bigger on the inside. As soon as the deep burgundy curtain of the tent falls behind them, the audience is plunged into the deepest darkness, breaths still, heartbeats in time, in unison.

 

Then a match is struck, and light flares to life in the center.

 

_ Whoosh! _

 

A hoop catches on fire, and then another, and then another. Not just any fire, but flames that shift from gold to orange to purple to rose and back. Seven large rings illuminate center-stage, where performers in sparkling costumes and painted faces stand ready to dazzle.

 

Soundlessly, the leap into action, dancing through the flames, disappearing one moment and reappearing the next, shifting shapes from man to hawk to beast and back, one tossing another into the air where they flip and flip and flip, higher and higher, until they’re dancing and flying through the air above the crowd.

 

The dances slow, eventually, to show off performer after performer, each with a different and unique skill.

 

Time flies, and when Molly sneaks another glance at Jim as everyone bursts into applause for the last time, she sees that he didn’t even realize the show had gone on for so long, or that they had taken to holding hands.

 

He ducks his head a bit and Molly thinks it’s a pity it’s so dim inside the tent because she bets he’s blushing too and she can’t really see. 

 

They get up from their seats and continue to hold hands in comfortable silence, as they let the crowd around them shift and push them along until they’re outside. 

 

Once the mass of people has thinned enough that they can hear each other without yelling, Molly swings their joined hands a bit.

 

“Well?”

 

Jim nods emphatically.

 

“Good choice. Great choice,” he says. She laughs. 

 

“Do you want to get popcorn?” she asks, spotting a cart outside the tent. There are still smaller tents to peruse, and they forgot to get snacks going in initially. Molly has planned to play this part by ear. Dinner is optional, and she has a range of options in mind. 

 

Jim shakes his head. 

 

“Do you want to see the snakes?” he asks. 

 

She nods this time, and tugs his hand toward the direction of the animals. “Let’s go!”

 

They chat about dinosaurs and biology and guesses as to what the school dance theme would be this year and whether peanut butter belonged in ice cream. The topic of soulmates and Quests don’t come up at all.

 

Later, they swing by a 24-hour diner, where they have greasy cheeseburgers and separate orders of fries, but share a milkshake. 

 

-

 

Jim barges into the cave that he’s become quite familiar with after these past four years, and practically throws himself to the carpeted section of the ground, sitting crosslegged.

 

“Are you sure I can’t get another one?” he asks, knowing it would be futile anyway. He hasn’t gotten a positive answer from this loser, ever. “A different quest.”

 

The man at the table, the Oracle, doesn’t even look up from his crossword. He takes another drag from his cigarette.

 

“You’ve got to stop barging in here every time you run into a snag,” the Oracle says in that droney voice of his. Ugh. “Don’t you have friends now?”

 

Jim scowls and mumbles and covers his face.

 

“What was that, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend now? Good for you,” he continues, sounding super bored.

 

“I didn’t say that!” Jim shoots back, voice pitching high out of nervousness.  _ Girlfriend?? _ They’d only been on  _ one _ date!!

 

He jumps up, indignant, and then runs out. 

 

He didn’t know  _ what _ Molly Hooper was to him, but he was going to figure it out.

 

-

 

Autumn tumbles by in the blink of an eye and Jim and Molly haven’t gone out again. They smile at each other in the hallways and wave and say hi, but they don’t have any classes together and Jim refuses to be seen during lunch, so they hardly see each other at all.

 

But Winter means the school dance (an underwater theme, so both of them had guessed wrong), and Jim plans to ask Molly.

 

He’ll never admit it to anyone, but his palms are a bit sweaty. They have no reason to be, because he likes Molly, and he knows Molly likes him, and hell, he’s even asked her to a dance before and she said yes! Before she mistook him for her  _ soulmate _ or whatever other nonsense. 

 

“Molly!” he calls out, waving as he spots her in the hallway. She waves back. Jim stops in his tracks, and some loser smacks into him from behind.

 

“ _ Ow!” _

 

But Jim ignores the traffic jam today, because he’s got something important to do. He makes his way over to Molly, and then looks her dead in the eyes very seriously.

 

“Molly, will you go to the dance with me?” he asks.

 

She smiles, light and easy.

 

“Of course,” she says.

 

He waits.

 

She keeps smiling.

 

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ It’s his turn to talk.

 

“Good. Great. I’ll see you there!” he says, then runs off. 

 

What the hell.

 

That was too easy.

 

-

 

Molly pats him on the arm as he gets them each a cup of punch.

 

“I knew you weren’t ready for like, a whole  _ thing _ , you know, so I thought it would be good to not rush things,” Molly tells him. She takes the proffered punch and then takes a sip. Then nearly spits it out. “Not, not that I didn’t want to come to the dance! With you!”

 

Jim’s face is not as expressionless as he thinks it is.

 

“I was very glad you asked.  _ I  _ would have asked, if you didn’t,” she says. She smiles again. “After all, it’s practically tradition, right?”

 

He nods. But he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to.

 

-

 

Jim slides into the cafeteria table seat right across from Molly two weeks after that, and says, rather stupidly, “Let’s have lunch.”

 

He fumbles and has to clarify that he does not, in fact, mean right this instant, though that was okay too, but that he thought they should have lunch outside on the grounds one day. A picnic. A date. He knew a great spot. Not like, a shady spot. But there was shade. There were birds. There were cool creatures to watch. That sort of thing.

 

Sherlock sets down his sandwich and says he’s lost his appetite, and John is trying very hard to pretend he isn’t listening or laughing. 

 

-

 

The picnic actually goes great (with the exception of one of the birds stealing a scone). The food is good, the weather is  _ perfect _ , the right animals show up that they’re not sitting around looking at trees or getting chased off by a bear, and they converse so easily that Jim didn’t know this was possible.

 

Until Molly brings up the topic of  _ soulmates _ .

 

“I remember I was really happy, you know, when I got my Quest,” Molly tells him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “The idea that I had a soulmate out there, and that I was going to be the one to take him out on the perfect date, that that was going to be the start of us.”

 

“It’s such a romantic and unique Quest,” she muses to herself.

 

“Uh-huh,” Jim says, palms prickling. 

 

-

 

Listen.

 

Jim isn’t an idiot.

 

He knows Molly’s totally gotten her Quest wrong.

 

Jim’s no expert on Quests, sure. Maybe his little stint with the Wish Stones wasn’t anywhere near the treasure he was supposed to uncover, but he’s not going to apologize because it wasn’t even that hard to steal. 

 

But the way Molly said it. 

 

Take him out?

 

On that cliff, moments after he tried to unleash the Endless Dark. Moments before he might’ve hurt one of the other students or pushed them off the cliff or something.

 

It’s pretty clear she was meant to do to him what he was going to do to one of the others.

 

She was probably meant to knock him out from afar, and bam, off the cliff Jim’d go. Forever.

 

_ That  _ kind of taking out.

 

Jim rubs at his nose, and wonders if he should bring it up the next time.

 

-

 

They hang out a lot more frequently after the picnic, but the topic of soulmates doesn’t really come up.

 

Molly and Jim have lunch together once a week, and then twice a week, and then they’re meeting up on weekends for excursions as well. 

 

Once or twice John and Sherlock will join, or John and Ellen and Sherlock, or John and Andrea and Sherlock, and so on and so forth. Either way, Sherlock is often so into his own world as they hike or explore or go see a movie that it doesn’t really matter to him or anyone else that he’s a fifth wheel. 

 

Before summer break, Molly and Jim see another movie, just the two of them, and then he kisses her for the first time.

 

She still doesn’t bring up soulmates.

 

-

 

The dating continues the next two years, and if anything changes it’s only that it becomes more official. 

 

Sherlock is still a constant fifth wheel on double dates. Molly and Jim still explore every inch of land and sea available to them, still explore every idea. They’re joined at the hip as they plan excursions and experiment with magic and take walks that lead to the most spectacular sights. 

 

Conversation is still easy and intimate between the two, and they talk about everything under the sun. 

 

Except soulmates.

 

-

 

Before they head off to university, Jim and Molly had both wanted to take a gap year. The topic wasn’t difficult to bring up, and neither of them felt hurt or shocked that the other had been thinking of taking this year for themselves.

 

They stayed up the entire last night together talking of all the things they wanted to do and see and grow into and become, they promised to write, they memorized the feel of other’s lips on their, the sight of their eyes, the feeling of their face in their hands. They don’t talk about soulmates.

 

-

 

Jim meets Molly at the airport when she returns from Greece, sunkissed and freckled, and he catches her when she jumps and they kiss and spin and it’s like they were never apart. 

 

They’re going to different schools, but the universities are close enough that they’ll easily be able to spend weekends together and alternate between who’s travelling when.

 

And then it starts to grate on Jim.

 

This is all getting awfully serious.

 

This is the type of relationship, given the length of its history and their compatibility as a couple, that was definitely considered long term.

 

He meant to bring up soulmates about five years ago, and it never happened. 

 

And when Jim gets antsy, when Jim gets  _ restless _ , he acts out.

 

-

 

Jim is on his way into town to visit Molly when he decides to take a detour and texts Molly he’ll be a little late.

 

He stops by a little art gallery they’ve passed by many times, to dine at the adjacent bistro. 

 

And then he stays, and watches.

 

He watches the people come in and out. He watches the guards take their smoke breaks. He watches the curator flatter an art buyer.

 

Then he goes to Molly’s.

 

-

 

“Jim?” Molly asks.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Is that,” Molly’s voice trails off, and Jim turns to look. She’s pointing at a framed painting on her dorm wall, and she is so glad she has a single room.

 

Jim just gives her a funny little half smile.

 

“Yeah,” he replies.

 

She makes a kind of strangled sound, and he looks a bit surprised, then considering, then resigned.

 

“All  _ riiiiiight _ , it’ll go back just the way it came, don’t worry,” he says, before turning back around to his book.

 

Molly just stares at the back of his head.

 

And stares.

 

-

 

A month goes by, and the antsy feeling doesn’t get any better. Molly shows up in Jim’s studio that Saturday, and there is a 15th century lute that clearly does not belong here.

 

“Jim?” she calls out from the front door, slowly closing it behind her.

 

He pops out from the bathroom, wiping a towel over his freshly shaven face.

 

“Molly! Hey!” he greets her.

 

She points at the instrument with a wary finger.

 

“Is that…?”

 

He looks over, sees it, then his shoulders droop and her worst suspicions are confirmed.

 

“That’s just. Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Don’t worry about it! It’ll go back in one piece.”

 

-

 

Molly starts to wonder if Jim’s developing kleptomania and why, but it happens so randomly and infrequently that it’s hard to say.

 

There’s that antique lamp that appears on her nightstand one February, but it’s only there for three days before it’s gone again. And then the  _ pearls! _ Oh those nearly gave her a  _ heart attack _ , but they were gone within the day.

 

Then there’s nothing for a good long time. One, two years maybe. Then Molly suggests they move in together as she finishes grad school, and Jim says it’s a wonderful idea, and it seems like he thinks it’s a wonderful idea too, at first, but then the next day she catches him with this weird, haunted look, and when she comes home that day, there’s a Persian cat with a  _ honest-to-God _ sapphire-set collar, just sitting in their living room.

 

-

 

“I can’t tell her, I need you to do it,” Jim pleads.

 

The Oracle looks up from his Economist magazine with some amount of horror. 

 

“Why are you  _ still  _ coming here?” he asks, as if he hadn’t noticed Jim’s noisy entrance moments before.

 

Jim starts to pace, nearly tearing out his hair.

 

“I can’t do it. I don’t know how to tell her. We’re not soulmates! We’re not! Soulmates aren’t even a real thing, but now I’m worried I’m keeping her from meeting her  _ perfect match _ because we only started dating because she was actually meant to  _ kill me _ , and hell, what kind of Quest is that to give a ten year old? 14? Whatever,” Jim rambles.

 

The Oracle rolls his eyes, and reaches for his cigarettes. Jim’s expression darkens, and he steps closer.

 

“Oh no, no, no, you don’t get to ignore me this time,” he says, snatching the cigarettes away. The Oracles gives him a very irritated look, but doesn’t even move to try to take them back.

 

“You’re going to help me,” Jim insists.

 

“I will not,” he retorts. 

 

Jim nods, picking up a nearby lamp. 

 

“You will,” he says, and smacks it against the Oracle’s head.

 

Out like a light.

 

Pun intended.

 

-

 

Molly comes home to find Jim starfished out on the ground, lying flat on his back with a newspaper over his face like he’s given up on everything.

 

At the kitchen table sits a tall man in a pinstripe suit, holding a bag of frozen peas to his face with one hand, and pen in another. He’s smoking a cigarette and working on a crossword.

 

Molly waves haltingly at the man in the suit who gives her a very forced smile in return.

 

“I couldn’t do it, do I brought him here,” Jim mumbles from underneath the newspaper, from his position on the floor.

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Molly asks, taking a wary step closer.

 

“Your Quest, you were wrong about your Quest,” Jim whines. “But I can’t bring myself to do it so I brought  _ him _ here to remind you what it was.”

 

Molly glances back at the smoker at her kitchen table and, and realization dawns on her.

 

“Jim….” she says, slowly. “Did you  _ steal _ the  _ Oracle _ ?”

 

The man at the table gives a long-suffering sigh, and Molly supposes that’s confirmation enough. 

 

Jim pulls the newspaper from his face and gives her a very wounded look. She frowns.

 

The Oracle shifts the chair, and turns to look at the both of them.

 

“I must apologize, but I remember none of you. It’s been years. You can’t possibly expect me to remember each and every one of your faces, much less what I spoke to you that day so many years ago,” the Oracle says, sounding not apologetic at all.

 

“No, of course not,” Molly responds quickly, and he turns back to his crossword. Jim stares after him looking terribly betrayed.

 

Then he sucks in a deep breath, and pulls himself to a standing position in an agonizingly slow manner.

 

“Molly,” he says, voice grave.

 

“Yes, Jim?”

 

“Molly, I’ve got to break it to you,” he says. He takes a deep breath.

 

“We’re not really soulmates.”

 

Molly stares.

 

“Um. Yeah, I know, is that. Is that a problem…?”

 

She glances between Jim and the man at the table, wondering if they would be having this discussion with company, but the man really does not seem to care or notice anything, so maybe it’s fine.

 

Molly stares at Jim, and then puts her hands on his shoulders, hoping it grounds him a bit.

 

“Jim, is that what you’ve been worried about this whole time?” she asks.

 

He looks stunned. Nods.

 

“Well,” she says, like it’s easy. “Stop worrying then!”

 

Then she drops her hands and pats him on the shoulders, once, twice, for reassurance, and then goes back to the front door so she can hang up her coat and bag. Like it’s easy. She just waves it off, like it's easy, and heads to the bedroom so she can change. 

 

“We’ll be fine!” she calls out, voice tinged with laughter and relief.


End file.
